Slow Healing Story

Land Restoration and Creating Circles of Repair

Nature is amazing, devastating, miraculous.

Sometimes I wonder: how is it that one ball spinning through space can have so much complexity and contradiction? So much heartbreak and breakthroughs, loss and ecstasy?

Here is my tiny part of the puzzle of healing in the midst of destruction. I had to show rather than tell, so below are seven little videos sharing both the manifestation and longer vision of restoring land post-wildfire in the alpine desert of Northern New Mexico, on the east side of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

I’m so excited to share these videos with you! I’ve been wanting to write about this since we first discovered newly sprouted aspens and put up the circles in June 2025. YAY!

For those of you who are new to Out of the Fire: Welcome! I’m an author and nomad, spiritual teacher and lover of fire. In May 2022 we lost 175 out 180 acres of the land I steward to the biggest wildfire in New Mexico history. This is the story of the restoration and healing.

Video #1: Quick community kitchen tour

We built the community kitchen during the pandemic out of almost 1,000 adobe bricks, almost half of which we made by hand, one brick at a time. My friend Marilyn is currently working on hand-build custom cabinets and I’m dreaming into what blend of turquoise and green I want to stain the concrete floor with.

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Video #2: View up the hill

The area around the community kitchen was spared from destruction thanks to our volunteer firefighters; so we have about five acres of green as our core community area. At our next work party in a couple of weeks my friend Emily will come from Mexico to pain a mural on the west side of the kitchen to give gratitude for what was saved and to bless our efforts at restoration.

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Video #3: View from the top

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Video #4: Cabin!!!! Santa Fe National Forest and burn

The cabin is complete! Built with love by Franklin and crew; our first a-frame built with burnt lumber from the land. We are dedicated to nourishing the soil, mycelium, plants, and trees to support bees, butterflies, bears, bunny, and deer. Slow and steady.

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Video #5: Circle tour

A work in progress! The fence protects the trees from deer and the occasional cow that wanders through; inside we’ll plant and map how things grow and spread.

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Video #6: Overview of circle

Look at this amazing tree!!!! Plan is to plan three trees per circle: this one will probably get a ponderosa pine and a wild plum. My thought is one deciduous, one evergreen, and one fruit tree per circle.

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Video 7: Next steps

Gratitude to you for being part of this process! So many people have donated, cheerleaded, cried with me, laughed with me, and visioned possibility. What once felt completely overwhelming is now growing from vision to manifestation, bit by bit, tree by tree, seed ball by seed ball.

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Let me know: what are you restoring in your life right now? Your faith? Your backyard garden? Your confidence? Your identity post big change? How is the process? Remember loves: slow and steady. Slow and steady. You’ve got this.

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Wildflower gallery

Here are a few of the flowers that are coming back; some our native, some from seed balls we planted over the past three years : )